Vhong back in public eye despite Roxanne’s rape Case

Vhong Navarro is taking steps to move on from the mauling nightmare by returning to his Saturday vaudeville ‘It’s Showtime’ where he shared this emotional statement to the madlang people:

Vhong hopes that It’s Showtime will help him cope with the problems he is facing in court (he is facing separate rape complaints from Deniece Cornejo and Roxanne Cabanero) and his personal trauma from the mauling incident.

In the show, Vhong said that the experience has changed him and that it would be difficult for him to be his old comedic self — almost two months after the incident, he is still scared for his and his family’s life.

However, Vhong still danced smoothly last Saturday in response to the audience’s playful chanting of ‘sampol,’ showing everyone that he is ready to set aside his fear for the sake of entertaining the audience… and for moving on from the experience.

Meanwhile, the preliminary investigation for Roxanne Cabanero’s rape complaint against Vhong started yesterday and already Roxanne is disappointed because the accused was no-show.

Last week, Vhong’s lawyer attorney Alma Mallonga criticised Roxanne’s camp for changing their original statements regarding the date of the rape. Roxanne’s lawyer Virgilio Battalia defended her client, claiming that they didn’t exactly name a date in the affidavit.

Roxanne meanwhile confessed that ‘honestly speaking, even I, hindi ko na ma-remember what date.’ She said she tried to forget the whole thing (ibaon sa limot) as the experience had been ‘horrifying’: ‘I don’t have a time to find justice then, it’s hard to relive it.’

According to Rape Crisis – South Africa, victims of rape may undergo Rape Trauma Syndrome (RTS), a medical term that explains the response of survivors to the experience. Two psychological responses under RTS are that the survivor’s thoughts may be confused and she may experience loss of memory.

If Roxanne had indeed been raped then RTS might explain why she cannot pinpoint the exact date of rape. But the graphic detailing of the rape itself, as stated in her original affidavit, suggests she has a sharp memory of what happened during that night. The question now is whether this selective memory is the product of RTS or of another thing altogether.